Mothers can relate to Roxon's decision

By Amy McNeilage

February 3, 2013 — 3.00am

TO BE appointed Australia's first female attorney-general was a dream come true for Nicola Roxon. Yet just over a year in the job, and at the peak of her career, she has decided to call it quits. She wants to spend more time with her seven-year-old daughter, an emotional Ms Roxon told reporters in Canberra on Saturday.

It was a difficult decision, over which she said she was ''very torn''. If she stuck around beyond the election, her daughter would be in high school by the time her term ended. The announcement came as a shock to many. But it is a predicament most parents in full-time work can relate to. Just moments after Ms Roxon stepped away from the podium, Nareen Young, the chief executive of Diversity Council Australia, tweeted: ''There's not a mother in the paid workforce who doesn't understand the factors that have impacted Nicola Roxon's decision.''

Women with young children are a particularly rare breed in federal politics. Finance Minister Penny Wong has a one-year-old daughter and the Minister for Health, Tanya Plibersek, is mother to three young children.

Fairfax columnist Jane Caro attributes their scarcity, at least in part, to the gruelling demands of the job: ''Sitting hours are ridiculous.''

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Caro, a mother of two, said juggling work and family commitments could be ''incredibly confronting and difficult'' for women with young children. The same was true for men, she said. ''If the workplace is toxic for women, it's toxic for men, too. We need to design a workplace where parents can contribute but can also get involved with, and have great relationships with, their children.''

There are more than a million mothers in Australia with children under six. For those whose youngest child was between the ages of six and 14, 79 per cent participated in the labour force in 2010-11, according to data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Elizabeth Broderick, the Sex Discrimination Commissioner, released a report earlier this week pushing for policy reform to value unpaid caring.

''We need to make it easier for men and women to both work and care,'' she told Fairfax Media on Saturday.

The mother of two teenagers said child rearing almost always overlapped with the most crucial career-building years.

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When her children were born she was partner in a law firm and continued to work three days a week in a flexible work arrangement.

''When I look back on that, I think it's one of the best decisions I ever made, to maintain that connection to the workforce,'' she said.